Tomato Plants

Question: My tomato plants are producing lots of fruits but the caterpillars are eating them and the leaves. I try not to use chemicals. Will soap sprays do? Answer Maybe if you hit the caterpillars with a soap spray it might help. But often there are too many of these critters for this almost hands-on approach. Actually, if you have to track them down you might as well pick them off. Maybe another natural approach might work for you. Use either the insecticide Thuricide or a spinosad-containing product.

Question: My tomato plants are producing lots of fruits but the caterpillars are eating them and the leaves. I try not to use chemicals. Will soap sprays do? Answer Maybe if you hit the caterpillars with a soap spray it might help. But often there are too many of these critters for this almost hands-on approach. Actually, if you have to track them down you might as well pick them off. Maybe another natural approach might work for you. Use either the insecticide Thuricide or a spinosad-containing product.

Q. When the freeze came, I covered my tomato plants but after several weeks all the leaves appear wilted. Will some growth appear once the weather warms up? A. Freeze damaged tomato plants seldom make a good recovery. By now it should be easy to tell what portions are alive and what is dead. If more than the ends of the branches have declined or most of the fruits are turning to mush it's probably time to remove the vines and prepare the soil for replanting. Gardeners usually try to have their new plants in the ground around the first of March.

Question: I am about to prune my Washingtonia palm. Can I prune the fronds to the 10 to 2 o'clock position? Answer: It's palm jargon, but the fronds left after pruning are often compared to the face of a clock. In this instance it is suggested the fronds would be left to fill the hours between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. of a clock as you look at the outline of the palm foliage against the sky. Actually the 9 to 3 look is more acceptable and allows for more foliage to produce food for the palm.

Q . I started tomato seeds and they germinated in five days. When are the seedlings ready for the garden? A . Quick starts are common with tomato seeds that first produce what's called seed leaves. In a day or two, the true fern-like leaves are noted as the plants continue growth. If you seeded several to a pot, transplant each seedling to a small container when two or more true leaves are present and the plants are about 2 inches tall. When they grow 6- to 8-inches tall and have several sets of true leaves, they are ready for the garden.

QUESTION: My tomato plants have bright green foliage and lots of flowers, but I get very few fruits. What's the problem?ANSWER: Hot weather keeps most large-fruiting tomato plants from forming their fruits. When day temperatures rise above 85 degrees, the more popular varieties drop their buds after flowering.Breeders are trying to produce a regular-size tomato for the summer season when day temperatures are above 90 degrees. They have released varieties Heatwave and Solar Set especially for Florida.

Question: I have seen pampas grass at some local garden centers. How well does it grow locally, and what care is needed? Answer: It's a survivor in much of Florida, tolerating dry, sandy soils with minimal waterings during the dry times. Like most drought-tolerant grasses, it grows during the rainy season or when landscape receives irrigation. Most of the local pampas grass has finished flowering, but the white to pink plumes can still be seen above the green foliage. Pampas grass is a clump-forming perennial that grows to 8 feet tall and about as wide.

Materials needed: Seeds of small-growing tomato varieties Florida Petite, Micro-Tom or Red Robin; potting soil mix; 4- or 6-inch pots; houseplant fertilizer; watering can; 1-gallon milk jug.Completion time: Enjoy the first fruits in 70 days.The project: Any sunny spot can be used to grow tomatoes. Even if the only area you have available is a windowsill, there is a tomato variety for you.Look for varieties that grow just 6 to 8 inches tall to plant in a small pot. Seeds of small tomato varieties are usually available from seed racks at local garden centers.

The Micro-Tom, the world's smallest tomato and Florida's newest contribution to the field of bio-engineering, will probably do very little to end world hunger.But the new dwarf tomato will make a big contribution in another area: etiquette. For salad eaters who've never known whether to cut cherry tomatoes in half or just shove them in their mouths whole, the Micro-Tom is the perfect solution.The new tomato, which was developed at a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences lab in Bradenton, is only 1 inch in diameter.

We have had a great year for tomatoes in our home gardens this past season. Some of us who planted tomatoes in October have been harvesting fresh tomatoes from our yards through May and until heavy rains damaged the plants.Usually our Florida produced bedding-tomato plants give us lush red fruit to about the Fourth of July. One exception - the year we planted Siberian tomato seed we got from Canada - these plants fruited several weeks longer.But we still savor tomatoes in the rest of the hot summer.

Question : Cannas growing in my yard were doing well until last month, when the leaves started to turn brown and they had lots of ants on them. Should I cut them back for winter or do they last all year? Answer : Look for the plumes of red, yellow or orange flowers well into fall until the cooler winter-like weather arrives. Plantings can continually send up new shoots and lose some of the old one. Trim off the declining flower stalks back to the green leaves. Then, as the leaves and stalks decline, they are removed too. As winter approaches, cannas totally decline then regrow during the spring months.

Question: I pruned my azaleas when you said and they are growing nicely. They are producing random long shoots. Can I prune these without affecting flowering? Answer: Who knows why, but even properly pruned azaleas do send out some excessively long shoots during the summer season. There is plenty of nice compact growth too, but these out-of-control spikes of foliage can give the plants a ragged look. The good news is these shoots are not likely to produce flowers. So feel free to cut them back as far as needed to bring the plants back in bounds.

Q . We have three beautiful cement pots that we have tried to use to beautify our front walk, but none of the plants we add seem to flourish. What should we plant and what care is needed? A . Sounds like you need a durable half-dozen or so plants to pick from. How about starting with lantana, perennial salvias, bush daisy, bulbine and whirling butterflies? Once established in the containers, these are fairly drought-tolerant and can survive some neglect. Others to select from include caladiums, angelonia, and pentas.

Q . My bahia lawn is filling with dollar weed. I am told a weed-control product with the 2,4-D herbicide would be good. Can it be applied now? A . Too bad we cannot cash in on dollar weed, as many gardeners would be rich. Instead, we are normally looking for a control. Most weed-control products found at local garden centers for use with bahia lawns contain a combination of herbicides. One active ingredient is normally 2,4-D, an older but very reliable broadleaf weed-control product.

Q . Our Meyer lemons are turning splotchy brown to almost black in color that doesn't seem to be sooty or wash off. What should we do? A . Enjoy the lemons this year that look blotchy on the outside but are totally edible on the inside. The pests causing this damage are rust mites and they have already finished producing most of the lemon-peel discoloration for this year. Mark your calendar to apply a horticultural oil spray in late June or early July. One spray is normally enough to give good rust-mite control for home citrus productions.

Q . I started tomato seeds and they germinated in five days. When are the seedlings ready for the garden? A . Quick starts are common with tomato seeds that first produce what's called seed leaves. In a day or two, the true fern-like leaves are noted as the plants continue growth. If you seeded several to a pot, transplant each seedling to a small container when two or more true leaves are present and the plants are about 2 inches tall. When they grow 6- to 8-inches tall and have several sets of true leaves, they are ready for the garden.

Here are some of the rules Florida growers adopted last year, which become state regulation July 1. *Documentation must be provided that workers wash their hands after using the bathroom. *Harvest bins and containers must be sanitized weekly. *Damaged, soft or decayed fruit must be separated from healthy tomatoes. *One portable toilet should be provided for every 20 workers, no more than 1/4 mile from work area. *When tomatoes are dunked in water, it must be 10 degrees warmer than inside of the fruit.

Do you like tomatoes? Did you know this is the most popular vegetable grown in home gardens and it's full of vitamins A and C? But not everyone likes tomatoes. When you think of tomatoes, you probably picture big, red juicy fruits. These are the fruits that are sliced and eaten fresh or placed on the top of hamburgers. But there are many more types of tomatoes. There are tomatoes about the size of your thumb usually called cherry tomatoes. It's fun to pop these right in your mouth fresh from the garden or add them to salads.

Q. An old crape myrtle I pruned back in the fall sprouted new green shoots this spring that are covered with a white chalky powder. What is needed to help the plant? A. That white powder sort of resembles eraser dust but there is little to be found in these modern times. Actually what has blown into your landscape planting is a good case of powdery mildew caused by a fungus common to older selections of crape myrtles. Powdery mildew can almost be eliminated in newer crape myrtle plantings by selecting the more recent varieties that often have native American names like Acoma, Tonto, Miami, Natchez and Tuscarora.